The immunity the Adanis ostensibly enjoy can be a vigorous election campaign point but not an ideological alternative to Hindutva. This is why it is important to underline the importance of the All India Federation for Social Justice, which Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin founded on April 3 in Chennai. With a clutch of Opposition parties, including the Congress, participating in the Chennai meet, the Federation sought to coalesce them around the ideology of social justice, strengthen federalism and secularism, and culturally interrogate Brahminical Hinduism’s tendency to preserve the hierarchical social order.

The Federation’s social justice agenda was articulated through its demand for a nationwide caste census, with Rajya Sabha MP Manoj Jha even coining a slogan—“No Census if no caste census.” This demand is closely linked to the Supreme Court shockingly upholding as constitutionally valid Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 2019 decision to provide a 10 per cent quota for the Economically Weaker Section after removing the cap of 50 per cent on reservation imposed via several court orders.